Igini: Why parties lack internal democracy

Akwa Ibom State Resident Electoral Commissioner Mike Igini spoke with reporters in Uyo, the state capital, on restructuring, the sanctity of the ballot box and internal democracy in political parties. Excerpts:

WHAT is your reaction to the agitation for restructuring?

I think that, from the outset, we should be clear that restructuring is not about the break-up of Nigeria as some have tried to insinuate to obstruct or make a win-win sane development conversation a difficult one. Look, if after over a hundred years of almagation and 57 years of independence we are still shamefully grappling with the intricies of even how to live together and have completely undermined our progress, common sense dictates that we should tell ourselves inconvenient truths, no matter how far we have gone on the wrong route, as well as, why we fared better in development terms in the First Republic before the military intervention derailed us from the path of steady growth and development under a political arrangement that our key liberating fathers bequeated to us. There is urgent need to get ourselves out of the structural gridlock that the military put Nigeria, by restructuring our political economy in order to unlock the potentials that abound in this country, in a way that would make the 36 states centers of production, generation of wealth and job creation instead of being idle and unproductive centers of monthly collection of rents from Abuja that is itself the chief rent collector that took over the wealth of the states and dwells only in collecting rent from only one out of the 68 items in the Exclusive list. This is unlike the United States where the central government controls only 18 items and all other activities that generate wealth from which taxes are paid to the centre left for the 50 states, which is why it is the foremost of the great nations today. The current debate on restructuring should be seen mainly from a development point of view and the consequent benefits to Nigeria. Looking back at the history of development, it was the practice to measure the development of countries from how much economic growth a country generated hence for those who are familiar with economic literature, you will recall people like Adam Smith, David Ricardo and others talked about nations generating wealth and concerned principally with trade balances and levels of gross production. But over time it became clear that this big picture did not fully tell the whole story of the wellbeing of everyone in the nation, hence a nation can earn so much, like Nigeria, from oil rent collection yet be filled with people who are struggling daily to eke a living, whereas a few or several people in that nation are accumulating humungous wealth as is the case with Nigeria tragically. This reality caused others to take a closer look at the object of development, first some re-classified the wealth of the nation on the basis of the spread of the wealth, then the notion of disparities, inequalities or unequal gradients in wealth of societies, others looked at what enhanced or reduced these inequalities. Among those who were prominent in the latter endeavor is Armyta Sen, who propounded that when society treats some of its people in such a way as to deny or diminish their abilities to fully function in society as we have done to the states of federation totally emasculated from wealth creation and denial of these states across Nigeria, this reduction in capabilities promote poverty and diminished the wealth of the nation as a whole and consequently its development. Sen therefore pointed out that the object of development must include not only the gross economic growth or trade advantages, but also the capabilities of citizens and states to fully function in economic activities. So development became clearer as not just the earnings of the nation or its economic trade balances as Ricardo and Smith conceptualized but also how it is spread and how it enhances the wellbeing of every level or stratum of the people of the nation.

So, restructuring is about development and not a break-up ?

Precisely, its essentially about development and how to stimulate economic activities to improve the wellbeing of Nigerians. it is about making every part of the country involved in productive economic activities and generate wealth that would enhance the welfare of our people and that is why scholars like Mahbub Ul Haq used the premise of capabilities of the citizens initiated by Sen to develop a composite measurement that can access human development using several key factors like Human Development Index which is a composite index that uses life expectancy, education, and per capita income to measure the development of nations. Now how do all these issues link with restructuring, they are linked because first it reminds us that we are not a country called Nigeria just to conduct elections, elect people, sell petroleum and collect Value Added Tax so that we can move from year to year boasting about a few billionaires.

You have said that the proposed amendments to the Electoral Act would impact on the 2019 and future electoral outcomes. Could you give insight to these provisions?

I have no doubt that some of these proposed new amendments would impact profoundly on the electoral outcomes if fully implemented by us. For example, in the proposed new amendments, there are now sections that allow all Political Party Agents to verify all documents to be used for an election in writing and if necessary by video recording, the amendment further invalidates any election conducted without following this provision and further prescribes imprisonment of one year or a million naira (N1,000,000.00) fine for any electoral official who fails to comply with it. This amendment like several others to my mind shows that the Legislators have taken into account some of the observed challenges of 2015 elections when there were reports of absence of original copies of form EC8A at polling units and now the law is aimed at ensuring accountability of such critical electoral documents thus making future elections more transparent but as we have always known, the devil is in the implementation and enforcement.

The Card Reader has not been given legal recognition by the courts. What is the legal status of the card reader now as 2019 gets closer?

Again, that is another important and commendable lesson learned with improvement by the legislators. They have not only gone ahead to legitimize the card reader, but have empowered INEC as the Election mangers to also be able to freely adapt to newer technologies by indicating that a presiding officer may use “a Smart Card Reader or any other technological device that may be prescribed by the commission from time to time for the accreditation of voters, to verify, confirm or authenticate.” This is brilliant and elegant policy drafting. It conforms to the reality of the hierarchy of policies, Political policy gives the vision, namely acceptable elections, Executive policy prescribes the enabling process and rules-the Electoral Act, they both should leave technical details such as technology which can change with speed beyond the decision-making adaptability of legislatures or other such minutiae of operational details to departmental policies which is what an INEC board is meant to do through its ICT and operation departments that should be accorded legal validity by virtue of sections 73, 153 of the Act and 160 of the Constitution but unfortunately the courts failed to do so with respect to matters of the 2015 elections. Now the Card Readers’ usage has been fully secured in the proposed Act.

Apart from accreditation process and polling units result that appear to be secured, there have been persistent allegation of alteration of results, either on the way to or at collation centers. Does the proposed amendment address this very important aspect?

Legitimacy is key to exercise of power because the basis of every system of authority and correspondingly of every kind of willingness to obey by the governed is based on the belief that those exercising authority derive it from the consent of the people and it is on that basis that they are lent prestige. So, anything that will enhance the legitimacy of the election process is good for those declared as winners through a better electoral process, hence some of these issues have been taken into consideration in the new amendments that provide multiple points for verification, that requires the Presiding officers to not only count and announce the result at the polling unit before the stakeholders, including journalist and observers, who are now allowed to record this entire process possibly electronically, the result must also be recorded in the prescribed INEC documents before these stakeholders, and the results transmitted electronically not only to the collation center for the election but also to a central INEC database for the particular election. Any breach of any of the above will attract a jail term of not less than five years without option of fine.

Are there provisions to deal with problems of party primary arising from absence of internal party democracy?

This is another area where amendments were also made to try to intervene in the chaos that often characterises Political Party nominations due to arbitrariness by Party bigwigs and Party officials. Now, a time frame of about 120 days or about 4months to an election has been given to provide certainty of delegates to a primaries except where over 50 percent of such a list are no longer party members or there is proof of death of these delegates, then a 10 day window prior to the election is the maximum allowable, but only for the latter reasons as contained in S.87 subsections 11, 12 and 14(5). Where Election Managers collude with parties to falsify such nominations as prescribed by law, they may be jailed for at least five years without option of fine. I personally applaud these amendents given the sad electoral history of Party Primaries outcomes that have proven to be one of the weakest links in our elections, I believe much more attention needs to be paid to the issue of internal party demoncracy that usually triggers crisis in these parties before election and drag on in courts after election. We have suggested at different platforms that the matter of selecting party delegates for an election, although it should be left to the parties, must however be subjected to two legal requirements. The party rule regarding nominations must be submitted in several copies to INEC with sworn court affidavits signed by the Chairman and Secretary, any amendments to it must not be made 6 months before any election, such amendments made before that time to the copies at INEC must have the Party Resolution where such amendment was made submitted with a court affidavit. where a party selects candidates, the minutes of the meeting, convention or delegates conference must be provided with a sworn court affidavit supported by an attendance list and signature of officers that formed a quorum. Providing such legal teeth around the selection of party delegates will not eliminate all problems, but it will empower party members in making their choice of preferred candidates, and whatever parties do will at least conform to some rules that are not very opaque.